Happy birthday to me!

I still haven't gotten the hang of being depressed because I'm another year older... I see it happen in other people, and I get it, but I have to say yet again -- my life gets better every single year I am alive.

Sure, there's stuff I'd like to do, and I wonder if I'll have the opportunity in this lifetime to do it... but whether I do or not, it doesn't change the fact that my life is freakin' awesome.

And this year, I have an amazing, awesome, terrific husband with whom to share my birthday.

And this year, I finally catch up with the age I was born... as Mom says I came out of the womb a 38-year-old midget, and I'm finally, finally 38. Of course, in many ways I'm much younger now than I was when I was born... so maybe I'm regressing. Whatever.

Here's a wedding picture for you hungry people :-)

More wedding stuff

Posting two days in a row -- must be a holiday or something. ;-)

So back to the wedding stuff...

After the pictures, I went back up into the hall. Shaul was sitting and speaking with the rav, and there was crazy loud music playing.

I should tell you that when we left to go do the pictures, the tables had been set up by my family, but there were no tablecloths, plates, etc. (Apparently they had tablecloths for a baby boy's brit milah [circumcision] ceremony, and A, my good friend, nixed that idea and let them know they needed to have more wedding-appropriate tableware.)

When we came back, the tables had been completely re-arranged, and they magically had place settings.

I guess it wasn't really magic -- it was the people at the hall, inspired by the loud music, who got things moving.

Yet both Shaul and I are very sensitive to loud noises, so the one moment that I turned into a demanding bride was when I insisted to the hall director that they turn down/off the music immediately. As he was trying to explain to me that it was only for their motivation purposes, I was trying to explain to him that the loud music hurt both my fiance and myself, and it needed to be turned down/off RIGHT NOW. He got the point, and they turned it off, thank G-d.

We were then a bit afraid, because instead of having place settings for 80, as we'd theoretically expected and set up for, suddenly we were down to 64. I guess it was fine, however -- I don't know that anyone left because there wasn't a seat for him/her, because somewhere around 10-20% of the people who had RSVP'd that they would be there did not, in fact, arrive.

In Israel, btw, a wedding of fewer than 100 people is considered almost miniscule. I had many friends who were hurt, I think, by not being invited... and, thank G-d, many more who were kind and understanding, and if they were hurt, they didn't show me at all.

Anyway, after the pictures, I needed to pray some before people started showing up. We were expecting people to start arriving around 11am, with the first part of the ceremony set to start at 11:30, or as close to that as possible.

In Israel, the time for the bride and groom to start greeting guests is usually one hour before the ceremony is supposed to start. Generally, the bride and groom are both ready to greet guests within a few minutes of the expected time, but the ceremony starts between 30-70 minutes later than the scheduled time. I was insistent that if G-d would send us exactly what/whom we needed for the ceremony to take place, it would start on time, and anyone who missed it would miss it. Because of Shaul's health situation, and both of our needs/desires to start things on time, as well as the fact that we were having our wedding while many people would be coming on their lunch breaks, we really wanted to start on time.

After I did my praying, it was a few minutes after 11. When I walked out of the tiny room I'd been in, there were almost no guests yet. I was doubting the possibility of starting on time. By 11:15ish, one of our witnesses had not yet arrived.

And suddenly, it was as if the floodgates had opened, and everyone showed up. I was busy giving blessings to people who asked for them, loving seeing such beautiful, holy friends and family come for our simcha (joyous occasion), and Shaul was busy signing the wedding contract with our witnesses.

I'll try to get pictures up soon... but for the moment, it's time to start getting ready for work.

More another day...

Um, okay, I'm married now...

My mom has been reminding me to update this blog -- guess time got away from me, as I was a teensy bit busy.

Even now, I don't have much time... I'm drinking my coffee, trying to wake up, while my husband (!) is at shul for morning prayers.

The last bit more than a month is something of a blur in many ways. The last few days before the wedding, I was going crazy trying to get everything done in time... I was making a Shabbat dinner for Shaul's family and mine - nine people - with almost everything made from scratch, because I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to food. And I figured it might be the only time I would have the opportunity to make Shabbat dinner for our families together, because it may not happen again in the future that everyone's in one place at the same time.

Shabbat day was spent with Shaul -- our last quiet time before the wedding. That evening, my amazing, beautiful, holy friend A came and picked me up from Shaul's and proceeded to kallah-sit (bride-sit) and take unbelievable care of me until after the wedding. I went to the mikveh (ritual bath) on Saturday night, then A sat up with me making lists and lists and lists, and running errands, and making sure everything was in order for the Big Day.

And the Big Day itself was amazing and beautiful, and I hope I can somehow remember it forever. I was spoiled in the hair/makeup chair, being taken great care of by two beautiful women who made me feel like a queen. I had a photographer from the time I got out of the taxi in the Old City, walking me through the alleyways on the way to the hall. Upon arrival at the hall, I pretty much promptly plopped myself in my queen's chair and didn't move, other than for pictures and praying.

Time for pictures was hilarious -- Shaul and I, followed by our families, made our way to the Kotel plaza, where we were photographed by hundreds of tourists. Some of the tourists -- from a Polish group -- kept coming up to us and congratulating us "congratulations! We are from Poland. Good luck to you!" etc. They kept following us around, until finally somehow they got the hint that we didn't actually want them in all of our wedding pictures. :)

Okay, that's it for now... coffee's done... I'll try to post more wedding story stuff, etc., over the course of the next few mornings.

It's not really a cliff-hanger, you know... I already told you I'm married :)

My tichel party

So first things first: a tichel (pronounced with the gutteral 'ch' sound, as in chutzpah) is a hair covering.

Most orthodox Jewish women cover their hair in some way after they get married. It comes down from the Torah that a woman married in accordance with Jewish law should cover her hair.

The way women choose to cover their hair depends on what their community standards are. Some women wear wigs, others wear hats, others wear scarves... there are thousands of possibilities, but mostly it depends on their communities.

At the moment, I'm not going to go into all the details of hair covering, except to say that although I find it to be a beautiful concept -- saving a beautiful part of myself for only my husband, as well as a clear symbol of being married -- I also find it very difficult.

During my ugliest years, and due to life circumstances, I felt there were many of them, the one thing I always understood was beautiful about myself was my hair. I remember liking getting my hair cut -- not just because of the head massage, and definitely not because of what my hair looked like afterward (it has a mind of its own) -- but because the hairdressers would always ooh and aah over my hair.

But as of yesterday, I was one week away from beginning this special mitzvah, and some of my amazing, holy and beautiful girlfriends came together and brought me scarves and scarve and scarves... and told stories, and laughed, and sang, and experimented with how different scarves look on my head.

It was an amazing and special evening, and I felt really blessed to have such awesome people in my life.

And once again, time slides away from me...

I really did mean to update here a bit more often during the course of wedding planning, but here I find myself seven days away from our wedding, G-d willing, and realize I haven't updated in like, three weeks.

Oops.

So here's the sitch:

Thank G-d, it looks like we've passed the bureaucratic obstacle course. We picked up the ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) on Thursday.

And as long as we have the groom, the bride, our families, the rabbi, the ring, and 10 Jewish men present one week from today, we're getting married in, oh, 172ish hours. Not that I'm counting. ;-)

Because we're doing a speedy engagement, even slightly speedy by Israeli standards, it means that there are people who are still now finding out we're engaged... and I'm sure that for a long time after the wedding, I'll be coming across people who had no idea I was even dating anyone, let alone engaged. That's what happens for keeping things so quiet, I know, and I hope that some of the people can and will forgive me for not having been in touch with them over the course of this period of time.

There are huge blessings all around us right now... things are coming together... I'm getting to know a cousin I barely knew... I love my job more than ever, because I'm finally working in a place where our Judaism (yiddishkeit) takes precedence over all else, so everyone there is thrilled for me, and ready to cut me some slack for being brainless nowadays. I love my chatan (groom) more than ever, also for being ready to cut me some slack for bring brainless nowadays ;-) I love my family more than ever, for being ready and willing to throw their entire lives out of whack to come join us for our wedding, and not complaining when we did it at what could possibly be the least convenient timing for them. I love G-d more than ever, for helping me through all of this craziness, and putting my future husband (no jinx) and I together at this point in time.

Life is freakin' awesome.

27 days and counting... no jinx!!!

G-d willing, Shaul and I will be married on Sunday, 13 September/24 Elul.

We have the hall & food. We're working on the guest list and e-invitations. We have a photographer, though we're not sure for how many hours we're hiring her yet. We have places for our families to stay while they're here. We're in process with the rabbinate in Jerusalem to get through the bureaucratic process.

We're on our way.

We do still have lots and lots to do.

So I pro'ly won't be posting here very often nowadays either, since as much as I like to talk about myself, I simply don't have much time.

But all-in-all, life is awesome. I've been at my current job for almost a year, and I still love it. I'm engaged to the man in the world who is perfect for me. I have awesome friends and family. Yeah, life is awesome.

Um, old new news...

If you're reading this, then chances are you already know that I'm engaged. But if you're not on facebook, you might not have any idea about the circumstances.

So I'm pasting below a note I wrote on facebook. I'll update another blog entry after this one, with other stuff.

from facebook:

So this will be quick-ish (as much as that's possible with my long-winded fingers, anyway).

Shaul and I met through frumster, an internet dating site for religious ("orthodox") Jews. He's Swedish, but he spent quite a bit of the last three years in the States. When we started writing, he was visiting his parents in Sweden. We communicated fairly regularly for about a month, before he came to Israel to visit in February.

We knew that he'd be leaving for anywhere between six weeks to three months, at the beginning of June. Way back in February, that did not seem like a big deal. By May, it seemed like a HUGE deal.

Because we knew from the beginning that our time together was limited, and due to the fact that I've felt somewhat like a teenage girl during this process, I pretty much dropped out of the lives of most of my friends.

I seem to have peculiar "luck" when it comes to my strong ability to "jinx" anything, any time, so other than the immediately close people here in the neighborhood and our families, very few people knew we were even in a relationship. Clearly, I never posted about it on facebook -- hence the reason so many of you were so shocked. ;-)

Shaul left Israel on 3 June, and when he left we didn't know when he'd be back. We did know he'd be coming back as a new immigrant. Thank G-d for Nefesh B'Nefesh, who brought Shaul HOME on 15 July.

In the Jewish calendar, Shaul's return was during a three-week period that has included tragedies for the Jewish people for a few thousand years. While it is absolutely acceptable to get engaged during that period of time, and thank G-d, many people we know did, our decision was to wait until afterward.

So Friday afternoon, after all of the mourning practices were lifted, we made it official.And now begins the fun period of time in which we get to plan a wedding. For personal reasons, we're planning on having something *tiny* and casual, and doing it as soon as possible. No jinx, no evil eye, we hope to be able to celebrate with all of our beautiful friends and family over time.

I ask your forgiveness in advance for anything I say or do, or don't say or don't do, while we're getting this together.

Thank you ALL for being such amazing and supportive friends and family!

The more things change...

... the more they don't. Yeah, it's a little twist on the other familiar phrase, because I didn't feel like being SO cliche.

Anyway... the point of that phrase in general is that really, some stuff just doesn't change.

So for anyone out there who somehow thought that getting a new president in the US or a new prime minister in Israel was going to mean some substantial change in Israeli policy, Israeli public opinion, etc., or some miraculous change on behalf of the Arab world... um, you can stop holding your breath now.

Yeah, I'm being a little extra obnoxious. I am sicker and tireder than ever of this whole "Israel needs to make concessions, give up part of its Biblical and historical homeland, let a whole bunch of fake refugees move in (or pay them off), have open borders with people who clearly verbalize their hatred for us and intent to kill us, etc. and then there will be some sort of peace" baloney.

Now the world is trying to tell us that not *only* do we "have" to give up any "unauthorized" communities, but we're not allowed to build in the ones we have? What? Including ones that in almost any supposed peace agreement would stay within Israel?

And people keep focusing on how the world is telling us we cannot even build within our own communities to account for "natural growth," but what, exactly, is that? Yeah, the idea comes from the fact that people are raising their children in these communities, and now the kids are growing up and can't find homes inside their own communities.

But what about me? What about anyone else who wants to go live in peace somewhere within Israel?

Yeah, maybe people who grew up there should have some sort of priority on getting housing there... but there's no legitimate reason why I shouldn't be able to also get housing there.

And I have to say... as much as I love Jerusalem, the minute my life will allow me to move into one of those communities, then G-d willing, that's where I'll be.